Box Score 1 | Box Score 2

The 11th-ranked Tiger softball team split a pair of games at Metro State on Wednesday (Mar. 20) in Denver, Colo. By winning game one 8-1, the Tigers set a new school record for consecutive wins at nine, before falling in the second game 6-4. The Tigers moved to 22-4 overall on the season.

Game 1: Fort Hays State 8, Metro State 1

Fort Hays State built a 2-0 lead after two innings, scoring once in the first and second. Bianca Adame came around to score on a Metro State error in the first and she had a RBI single in the second.

The Roadrunners got a run back in the third with a solo home run, but Amy Dunn had a solo shot of her own in the fourth to push the lead back to two at 3-1.

The Tigers put the game away in the fifth with five runs. Amanda Vaupel and Paxton Duran had back-to-back doubles to generate the first run. Kellsi Olsen had a two-RBI single three batters later and Courtney Dobson had a two-RBI single as well, pushing the advantage to 8-1.

Paxton Duran was solid in the circle, allowing just one hit and one run in her 5.0 innings pitched. Jordan Jones entered to pitch the final two innings, allowing just one more hit. Duran struck out four and walked three, moving to 8-3 overall.

The win gave FHSU a nine-game win streak, setting a new school record. That passed the old mark of eight set in 1999, 2003, and 2005.

Game 2: Metro State 6, Fort Hays State 4

Paxton Duran took the circle for the Tigers once again in the second game and held the Roadrunners scoreless through the first three innings. Maddie Holub staked the Tigers to an early 2-0 lead with a two-run home run in the first, her 11th of the season.

Metro State cut the lead in half with a solo home run in the fourth and the Tiger bats went silent after a two-out double by Kellsi Olsen in the second. From that point, Metro State pitcher Monique Hernandez held the Tigers hitless over the next 3.1 innings. That allowed the Roadrunners to take advantage of a pair of costly errors by the Tigers in the fifth.

A fielding error with one out and a runner at first would balloon into five runs for the Roadrunners. Following the error, a double plated two runs to give Metro State the lead at 3-2. Jordan Jones entered the game in relief, got the second out of the inning, which should have been the end of the inning, then allowed a walk and a double that pushed the Roadrunner lead to 5-2. The Tigers committed another error after that to allow another run to cross the plate. Four of the five runs in the inning were unearned.

The Tigers would not go quietly though, as Danie Brinkmann cut the advantage to two with a two-run homer in the sixth. In the seventh, the Tigers managed to get a pair of runners on to give Holub a chance at the plate with two outs, but she flied out to right field to end the game.

Duran moved to 8-4 on the season with the loss. In 4.1 innings, she allowed six hits and only two of the four runs she allowed were earned. Both runs allowed by Jones in relief were unearned. Neither pitcher recorded a strikeout in the game.

The loss marked the first in-region loss of the season for FHSU, which opened the season with 19 consecutive in-region wins. FHSU is now 19-1 overall in region games, but has yet to drop a contest to MIAA, NSIC, or GAC opponents, which are the conferences that compete in the Central Region at the end of the season. Colorado schools count as in-region games for FHSU as it's a contiguous state to Kansas.